Hope is life giving. Hope gives people a reason to keep moving forward, work through any rough times and heal from the past. Without hope, this world is pretty overwhelming. OK, even with hope it is pretty overwhelming, but hope is tricky because it can also keep you in situations you shouldn’t be in and keeps you coming back for more hurt.
The other tricky part of hope for me is that more times than I can remember, I would begin to hope that maybe the abuse would stop and the relationships would get progressively better. I would go on to hope that after the relationships got better, I could finally become whole, have support from those around me as well as unconditional love, both to give and receive. But it never happened. The abuse continued and the rules constantly changed based on what the person wanted at that particular time or it was just fun for them to make life difficult.
Recently, I began to hope that maybe, just maybe, there could be some change in the way I am thought of with some of the people in my life.
Within a few days, though, I was told that I had been blamed for not doing something when I was only doing what others had done before me. Sigh. It hurt yet again. I felt stupid and ridiculed myself for attempting to hope.
But I want to be able to hope. I want to have something that propels me forward in my present that will guide me to my future. Unfortunately, I’m afraid of going there. Hope has not been a positive in my life. It has kept me in terrible relationships for far longer than I should have stayed. The more I stayed, the less I expected from the abusive people in my life and the more I allowed to happen. And if I dared to hope, it usually set me up for a huge letdown.
Hope is beautiful, though, and almost magical in my mind. It’s something I’ve wanted to experience freely throughout my life, but did what I could to not allow it. Because of this, my maturity where hope is concerned is somewhat like a young girl. For example, I’m the type that can watch something about Princess Diana and there will occasionally rise up in me hope that maybe, just maybe, this time the story will be different. Please understand that I know without a doubt that it won’t, but sometimes it still happens. It’s because I have had so few positive experiences with hope.
I want that relationship with hope to change. Hope is a gift that God gives us. He is even referred to in the Bible as the God of hope in an amazing verse – May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13)
I have no problem with hope for my eternal future. I know I’ll be with Him in heaven and the troubles of this world will melt away, but I long for that type of peace, joy and hope in this present life. I want to get to a point that I can freely hope and dream for my future without something terrible happening that kills a little more of my spirit.
This is my prayer.
~ Joanna Lynn
